The device has its greatest applicability as a retainer of large solids within a drinking glass while permitting liquid to be drunk therefrom. It has previously been proposed to provide a strainer or the like for insertion in the mouth of liquid containers. For example, Ekdahl, U.S. Pat. No. 2,106,453, Swing, No. 2,357,063, and Smith No. 2,265,403 all teach devices which are adapted to fit onto drinking glasses to hold ice or other solids within the glass while permitting the liquid to be drunk therefrom. It has been found that prior art devices easily slip from their required orientation so that they either must be held while drinking or, if they are not held, there is the possibility that they will slip and allow the ice to flow from the glass. This can result in spilling liquid and ice on the users face and body. Therefore, one of the objects of the invention is to provide a device which will securely hold the drinking glass to minimize the chances of spilling.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a guard for a drinking glass which will be very inexpensive to manufacture and which will have an indicia carrying face to receive advertisements or the like. Preferably, the device could be given away by high volume food stands and restaurants to customers buying a beverage. The indicia would either be a printed message on the face of the device or the face would be of such a shape that it would represent the logo or other symbol of the restuarant or beverage manufacturer. Because these devices may be a free premium, they must be extremely low cost. Therefore, it is advantageous to manufacture them from one piece molded plastic because plastic is inexpensive and because a one piece molded device eliminates necessary assembly steps. It is another object of the invention to provide a device which will have a secondary function other than holding ice and other solid objects within a glass. The advertiser who is giving away the device to customers buying his product whould find it advantageous if the advertisement on the device could be seen by others than just the original purchaser of the beverage. Moreover, others seeing the device used in a second useful manner may buy the beverage at the restaurant in order to obtain such a device for his own use. Therefore, it is an object to provide such a secondary use for the invention. The above objects and other objects are met by the present invention which is described in detail below.